Meringues

Even though meringue and macaroon are both made with egg whites, I prefer the crunch of th meringue a whole lot more. Chris prefers the macaroons, so I have been making those for him the last couple of time we happened to have extra egg whites on hand. This time, I had 6 egg whites. So I decided to make both. I only ended up meringues though, somehow my macaroons didn't quite hold and became all flat and gooey. At least the meringues are good. This recipe is from the Everyday Food tv show.

Chocolate Chips Meringues

4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 bag (about 16 oz) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 225F. Whip the egg whites with cream of tartar, vanilla extract and salt together until soft peaks form in stand mixer. Slowly start adding sugar and whip until stiff peaks form, but not dry. Fold in a chocolate chips (I used the white/semi-sweet chocolate chips) carefully. Use about 1/4 cup of meringue/chocolate chips mixture for each meringue. Bake for 1 1/2 hour on parchment paper or slipmat.

Artichoke Sausage Pasta

After the holidays, all we wanted was something slightly less rich. I'm not saying to give up taste, but maybe a bit less cream and butter. So the first thing I made was a artichoke and sausage pasta. Chris loves artichokes. I just don't get to cook it very often due to all the trimming involves since it doesn't quite fit my quick weeknight dinner routine. The artichokes tastes so much better fresh than the frozen prepared ones that I might just have to make sure I cook this more often on weekends.

Holidays 2005

Yes, I know I have been neglecting this blog the past couple months. I have excuses of course, but you wouldn't care about that, would you? =) So to catch up on things, I will just combine a couple of them to at least get current.
Was it just me or does the holidays get more stressful and short as you grow older? Gone are the days when I look forward to the holidays and get excited about the presents. It's still a great time of the year, having the chance to see family and friends. But there's so much more to do! Besides the whole shopping for presents part, we also get to bake quite a bit for all the parties and family gatherings. This year, it seems like we were running to store for more eggs and butter every week. (I would keep track of how much butter we actually went through over the holidays, but I don't think I really wanted to know.)
Here's a list of some of the stuff we made during the month of December:
Sumi and Cliff's holiday party - Chocolate Tart, White chocolate and Berries Tart, and cream puffs.
Christmas party at work - brownies
Presents for co-workers - butter cookies (won't be able to make these anymore since I broke the cookie press)
Christmas Eve (with Chris' family) - Caramel Apple Cheesecake, Cazuela Pie (Pumpkin, Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Pie).
Christmas Day - Cazuela Pie, Open-faced peach custard pie
No wonder everybody tries to lose weight after December!